A third extension of martial law in Mindanao mocks the Constitution for wanton absence of constitutional bases which are the presence of actual rebellion and public safety requires the extension.

Rebellion dose not persist in Mindanao and consequently public safety is not imperiled. 

It is President Duterte who is vested with the initiative for the extension of martial law and he has not communicated to the Congress his desire to prolong the martial law regime in Mindanao. 

The second extension expires on December 31, 2018 or 27 days from now while the Congress adjourns for the Christmas break in less than two weeks. Fast-tracking the extension militates against a thorough congressional validation of and deliberation on the constitutional and factual bases for any extension. 

Both chief of staff Carlito Galvez, Jr., the martial law executor, and defense secretary Delfin Lorenzana, the martial law administrator, have not formally recommended to the President any extension.

Galvez and Lorenzana are foot-dragging in recommending another martial law extension because it appears that it is not of critical immediacy and another extension is an admission that the military has failed to achieve the purported objectives of the previous martial law extensions. 

The justification of Galvez that there is public clamor for the extension is flawed because popular clamor is not a ground for martial law or its extension. 

Moreover, the alibi that “terrorists are still lurking in the area” is not also a basis for extension because terrorism is not rebellion and the threat of terrorism, like the imminent threat of rebellion, is not a constitutional ground for martial law or its extension because “imminent threat of rebellion” has been obliterated as a ground in the 1987 Constitution because “threat” is contingent, self-serving and nebulous.

EDCEL C. LAGMAN